


Flip This

by concertigrossi



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Curtain Fic, Gratuitous NYC Stereotypes, House Hunting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-01 18:46:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15779928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concertigrossi/pseuds/concertigrossi
Summary: Be it ever so hard to find, there's no place like home.orSuperheroic house-hunting in the most competitive real estate market on the East Coast.





	Flip This

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Feng Shui and Granite Countertops](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12711927) by [cakeisnotpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakeisnotpie/pseuds/cakeisnotpie). 



> I thoroughly enjoyed reading through [cakeisnotpie's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakeisnotpie/pseuds/cakeisnotpie) fics, and had a hard time settling on just one. Thank you for letting me play with your toys, cakeisnotpie! :)
> 
>  
> 
> With many thanks to my beta readers ishymaria, Stump, and [gth694e](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gth694e/pseuds/gth694e/works).

     When it came right down to it, most people didn’t realize the extent to which SHIELD had tendrils everywhere, but SHIELD had a lot of, shall we say, special needs. Most health insurance plans would balk at the rates of traumatic injury alone; the alien viruses, the de-agings, the sudden onsets of psychic ability - any one of these by themselves would be a bridge too far for the average medical plan. SHIELD had tried to get life insurance through literally everyone on the market, but even Lloyd’s of London laughed in their collective face.  
And then there was the real estate.  
SHIELD was big. Really big. Really big, and spread over many countries and jurisdictions.  Acquisitions, deaccessions, and taxation provided full-time work for dozens of people across the organization.  Property maintenance provided work for thousands more, some of that work being very highly classified.  And that was only when things were running smoothly - how did you handle it when a couple of Norse Gods came to town and started to run amok?  Someone had to deal with that kind of cleanup and restoration.  
So SHIELD had its own division just to handle real estate transactions.  
SHIELD had also figured out pretty quickly that they had a vested interest in keeping their assets and their assets’ families safe and secret, so one of the perqs of working SHIELD real estate was picking up buyer’s or seller’s commissions from SHIELD staff who were in the market for a new house, and were comforted by the knowledge that their prospective purchases would be researched and vetted in every way humanly possible.  For the real estate agents, the personal home sales usually tended to be fairly low-key, unstressful affairs, even when working at the New York office.  
The operative word being, “usually.”  
Garnett Ivins, running late after an unfortunate coffee incident, rushed into the common meeting area just as her boss was finishing the Monday morning briefing.  
“… even though one of them is a member of the Avengers, I expect that this office will behave with its usual levels of professionalism and discretion,” said Freddie Hagen meaningfully.  
“What’s up?” she whispered to Diana.  
“Clint Barton and his husband came by. They’re house-hunting.”

 

—

 

Louisa Franklin, as the most senior in the office, got first crack at the file, and everyone figured that was that. However, she took the happy couple to see exactly one house before her monthly Patreon subscriptions took off, and she gleefully left SHIELD to go be a sci-fi writer full time.  
(Garnett was happy for her. Honestly, Louisa was such a ray of sunshine it was impossible not to be happy for her. But her departure was just going to make the office that much more sarcastic and gloomy.)  
Freddie handed the couple off to Frank Boucher next, but an unexpected paddleboarding accident put him on disability for three months, so Steuben Viswanathan came up to the plate.  
He didn’t make it through the initial interview.  
“I didn’t sass! I wasn’t rude!” said Steuben defensively, explaining to Freddie. “I just said, they’d have more options if they weren’t looking to house so much memorabilia, if they’d consider a storage location…”  
Barbara Limoncelli read through their file, took them to one house, and out of nowhere (or so Garnett thought) decided that her work with the Moroccan office took precedence, and handed it back.  
Carl Johanssen, that smarmy bastard, was next in the seniority, and was unsurprisingly smug about it.  
“Don’t worry, ladies, I’ve got it from here,” he smarmed at the rest of the office.  
Garnett wasn’t surprised when it didn’t last. After a few houses, Phil Coulson himself had come in and asked Freddie if they could see another real estate agent.  
“Nothing against Mr. Johanssen, you understand, but it just isn’t working out,” he said. Coulson’s voice was quiet, but the bullpen’s acoustics were such that everyone heard him anyway.  
Carl had taken it badly, after Coulson had left, huffing back to his desk and grumbling under his breath about fussy old que-  
“Do you want another sensitivity briefing, Carl? Because that’s how you get a sensitivity briefing,” warned Freddie, coming up behind him.  
Carl rolled his eyes, but muttered an apology.  
Freddie tossed the Coulson/Barton file to her.  
“Your turn, Garnett.”

 

—-

 

Really, she knew better than to think she would hit it on the first try.  
She approached it carefully - the pair had been through fifteen houses and five agents already; their file was developing a cursed reputation. She interviewed them first, and listened carefully to their accounts of their experiences so far, trying to get a read on their personalities.  She knew who Clint Barton was, of course, and was very proud of the way she’d kept her composure on their first meeting, but she’d only ever heard shadowy rumors about Phil Coulson, namely that he was the Avengers’ handler and Nick Fury’s best friend, and frankly, she couldn’t figure them out as a couple at all.  
She interviewed the family as well, to get a read on what they as a whole needed.  Bella and Josh were sweet and well-mannered, but no different from any other kids their age that Garnett could see.  She was surprised that Coulson and Barton included their nanny in the deliberations - not a level of consideration she’d typically seen in her clients.  (She also didn’t miss the way the nanny’s eyes lit up at the places that had accessory dwelling units.  Maggie clearly adored her charges and liked her employers, but was definitely in need of her own personal space.)  
Nevertheless, it wasn’t until she got her clients on-site and watched their interpersonal dynamics that she really understood who they were and what they were looking for.  In the field, when they thought she wasn’t watching, Barton and Coulson clicked.  They were so obviously, stupidly in love, and such excellent foils for each other.  Josh went haring off to try to pick apart anything mechanical at the first opportunity, Bella had a habit of staring off into space oddly, and poor Maggie just looked harried.  
Garnett nodded.  She could work with these people.  It might take a little doing, but she’d figure it out, and find something good.

 

—

 

Her good opinion of them all only grew, as time wore on.  It was just… it was just…  
It was just that they were also a little bit picky.  
They had a right to be, of course, and they could afford it, but Garnett’s confidence was taking a serious beating.  
She thought she finally had it dialed-in with the tenth house they’d looked at, but that had fallen through, and fuck Tony Stark straight to hell.  
The eleventh was an awesome fixer-upper in Bed Stuy that Coulson vetoed out of hand.  
Well, to be fair, he’d given it a good look-over, and had asked reasonable questions, but at the end he’d just looked at Clint and said, “I have so little time with you and the kids as it is, I want to spend it with you guys, not hassling with contractors and worrying about building codes.”  
Garnett had never heard a romantic sentiment with the phrase “building codes” in it, but hey, there was a first time for everything.  
The twelfth was an admitted long shot, as she thought that neither of them would be especially suited to Park Slope, but it was a nice brownstone. She waved at Clint on the doorstop, but didn’t see Phil. The slight figure next to Clint turned around, and it took all Garnett’s _savoir faire_ not to absolutely melt into a fangirl puddle.  
It was _Natasha Romanoff._  
_Be cool. Be cool. You are a professional. Be cool._ Garnett said to herself.  
“Phil couldn’t make it today,” said Clint apologetically.  
“I’m the pinch hitter,” Natasha smiled.  
Clint introduced them (OH MY GOD OH MY GOD SHE SAID TO CALL HER “NAT”) and, after taking a second to pull herself together, Garnett launched into her spiel, and then let them alone to look over the property, staying in easy earshot in case they had any questions.  
Clint approached her as Natasha headed up into the attics.  
“This is nice,” said Clint. “The neighborhood’s a bit much, but workable…”  
“You think so? You think Phil will like it?” Garnett asked, hope rising unbidden in her chest.  
“I think so. I just want a space where he can be comfortable…” he said and trailed off. After a moment, he looked over to her with those piercing hazel eyes and explained.  
“It’s just… he takes care of people. All his people, all the time. That’s his job, and he’s good at it. He’s the best. So I want a place where I can take care of him.”  
Garnett’s heart just about broke at this sweet, loving sentiment and she was on the verge of telling him as much when Natasha came thumping down the stairs.  
“It’s pretty enough, I guess, but Clint, this place is shit. The sight lines are all wrong and the position is way too exposed.”  
“Really? Crap. Let’s try someplace else, then.”  
Garnett put on her best smile, but gritted her teeth. She put “must be in a defensible position” on her ever-growing list of criteria, and ignored the stress headache that was forming in her temples.  
_Fuck my life_ , thought Garnett.  
And fuck “Nat” Romanoff, too.

 

—

 

Unlucky thirteen brought Coulson, no Barton, and by God if that wasn’t Nick Fury himself standing there at the address when her cab pulled up to the curb. He and Coulson were chatting like they were two completely normal people, and she told herself that Nick Fury wasn’t nearly as intimidating without the black trenchcoat.  
It was a lie.  
“East 79th street, Cheese? Isn’t this a little too close to home?”  
“We’ll give it a chance, at any rate.”  
The house really was beautifully spacious and elegant.  It boasted a stunning layout, with magnificent views of the city skyline, and the interior was the very model of good taste and design.  The common rooms flowed gracefully into one another, and the bedrooms were nicely segregated without being terribly distant.  Coulson looked impressed, Garnett thought, but she gave up quickly on trying to read Fury.  
“The basement is fully finished as a den and rec room space…” she said, as she led them down the stairs.  She opened the door at the end of the small, dim hallway, and got the shock of her life.  
As soon as the door cracked open, their ears were assaulted by painfully loud, thumping dubstep, the soundtrack to an apparent orgy involving some twenty to thirty people.  Whatever the virtues of the space might have been, they were entirely obscured by the mass of writhing bodies.  The couches and cushions had all been put to use to assist with some of the more the anatomically improbable positions, and there were bottles of personal lubricant scattered everywhere.  
Garnett stood riveted.  _They weren’t supposed to be home. I confirmed the date and time twice. They weren’t supposed to be home._  
The participants, occupied as they were, hadn’t even noticed the door opening. Nobody even looked up.  
Garnett slowly, quietly closed the door, her heart racing. Agonized embarrassment crashed through her veins, and her body ran hot and cold. She was sure Fury and Coulson could see the blush at the back of her neck. She’d just shown that scene, in this house, to the Head of SHIELD and his right-hand man, quite possibly the two most important people she would ever have to work with. If a hole had opened up in the floor at that moment and swallowed her down to death and torture eternal, she would have welcomed it gladly. She could have screamed or cried, but had to face the fact that there was nothing to be done, no way to walk this back. After an everlasting moment’s pause, she took a deep breath, turned back to Fury and Coulson and met their eyes. The two men stood with completely straight faces, looking politely at her as if nothing had happened.  
“The basement soundproofing, as you can see, is absolutely top-notch,” she said after clearing her throat. “Shall we go back upstairs?”  
They nodded and agreed.  
Her memory of the rest of the showing was utterly shot, subsumed as it was by the burning mortification of The Incident, but somehow she got through it. Afterwards, they called her a cab and made their polite goodbyes, Coulson promising to contact her as soon as he had a chance to discuss the house with his husband.  
(What Garnett Ivins did not know and would never learn, however, was that as soon as her cab was out of sight, the head of SHIELD and his right-hand man collapsed together in absolutely helpless laughter for a good fifteen minutes, only stopping when a painfully coiffed woman with a Birkin bag told them off for causing a disturbance. “Basement soundproofing” entered their lexicon as a private joke that nobody at SHIELD dared ask about.)  
Back at the office, she slumped down at her desk chair. Funny, the office prohibition of alcohol on the job had never been a burden before.  
Her computer chimed an alert. She brought up the screen - a new e-mail from Phil Coulson glared at her from her inbox. She clicked on it with a shaking hand, almost hoping to get fired.  
TO: ivinsg@SHIELD.org  
FROM: coulsonp@SHIELD.org

I don’t think that last property is going to work out, I’m afraid. Some things can’t be unseen. Let us know when you’ve got the next viewing lined up.  
Thanks,  
 Phil Coulson

Garnett slumped even lower in her seat, staring at the screen.  
“Everything okay?” chirped Diana.  
Garnett stood up suddenly and grabbed her purse.  
“I’m going out for a drink. Want to come?”

 

—-

 

She’d regained her equilibrium by their next viewing, but as they were walking up to the front door of house fourteen, a really nice townhouse in Hell’s Kitchen, Barton stopped her.  
“They’re not home?” asked Barton, his eyes suddenly twinkling. “You’re really sure they’re not home this time?”  
Garnett felt her face color. Coulson stepped on Barton’s foot, not very subtly, but his laugh-lines had crinkled.  
The traitor.  
The tour, at least, went flawlessly. (She had long since learned to keep the broker-babble to a minimum.) She stood on the second floor, discreetly watching Barton and Coulson walk through the back garden when the two of them were approached by a young woman and a blind man with a cane.  
The hell? She could have sworn the back gate was locked!  
She hurried downstairs to intercept and run the interlopers off. By the time she got down there, the situation had evidently escalated, and both sides radiated hostility.  
“Give me a break! Your kid has playdates with Wilson Fucking Fisk, for fuck’s sake!” snarked the woman, rolling her eyes.  
“I’m sorry!” she said, putting on her best “I Am In Charge Here” voice and striding right into the middle of the argument, “But this is a private viewing! If you wish to tour the property, you’ll have to speak to the seller’s broker!”  
Both sides looked at her in slight shock, but stopped.  
“You’re right. We’re sorry to interrupt,” said the blind man. He gave his arm to the woman he was with, and turned to Coulson and Barton. “You’ll remember what we discussed.”  
“Count on it,” snarled Barton.  
The three of them watched the unlikely pair unlock the gate and leave.  
“What was that all about!?” she asked Coulson, as soon as they’d gone.  
“Long story.” He shook his head. “You know, I think Hell’s Kitchen is going to be kind of inconvenient for us after all...”  
And just like that, an entire neighborhood was off the table.  
Garnett never did find out why.

 

—

 

Fifteen had her cursing the photographer for a liar, all the while swearing to hire him for the next property she listed - he’d done absolutely magical things with angles and light, and had made a shotgun shack out to be a palace.  
Sixteen didn’t have enough closets.  
And as for seventeen, well…  
Garnett sat at her desk, weeping disconsolately. Freddie approached her with evident caution and vaguely uncomfortable concern.  
“What is it?” asked Freddie nervously. “Is there anything I can do?”  
“I nearly had it. It was nearly a done deal. All over but the signing…” she sobbed, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose with the tissues on her desk.  
“What happened!?”  
She slapped the listing on her desk.  
“It’s owned by goddamned MIDLAND CIRCLE! Aren’t these listings supposed to be vetted before they get to us!?” she yelled, furious.  
“Well, shit!” Freddie said, appalled. “I’m sorry, Garnett, I’ll find out what happened.” He patted her on the shoulder awkwardly, and, when that failed to stop the tears, hurried to get something from his office.  
“Here.” Freddie handed her a file. ”It’s a softball. A favor for a friend of a friend of Fury’s.”  
Garnett blew her nose again, and took the file. Freddie’s cure for problems at work was, it seemed, more work, but he meant well.  
And it really said something about the current state of affairs that “softball” meant “find an nice apartment in the Meatpacking District on a graduate student’s budget.” Tina was very nice, though, with realistic expectations, and when Garnett found her a sixth-floor walk-up (all of 401 square feet) near the High Line, the girl had squealed with delight and almost started bouncing with happiness.  
It was at least a slight balm to Garnett’s increasingly bruised ego.

 

—

 

She e-mailed Coulson and Barton about prospects eighteen and nineteen. Some of her frustration must have bled through into her comments, because a little while later Phil Coulson himself appeared in her office.  
“They look promising. We’ll be there,” he said, smiling.  
“Sounds great,” she said, a bit off-guard at his presence. Apart from the showings, they communicated almost exclusively via e-mail. “Was there something you needed?”  
“No…” he said tentatively. “But I get the impression we’re not the easiest clients you’ve ever had to deal with.”  
“Oh, it’s not a problem. You’re fine,” she called upon her decades of experience in customer service to lie convincingly, shamelessly and with a big smile, but she was pretty sure his sharp eyes didn’t miss a trick.  
“Well, I wanted to say that we appreciate the hard work you’re doing for us. It’s not gone unnoticed at all,” he said earnestly.  
Despite herself, she started feeling a little bit better.  
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m glad to be able to help.” It wasn’t quite as much of a lie this time.  
He said goodbye and turned to go, but when his hand touched the doorknob, but he turned back to her. “Clint, well, he had a hard time growing up. There are a lot of terrible stories that aren’t mine to tell, and I can’t fix any of that. The only thing I can do is to try to make up for it, to give him a good future and a home with his own family.” He shook himself a little, as if to apologize for this oversharing.  
“We just have to start with a house,” he said.  
Her frustration bled out, somewhat against her will, but it was hard to hang on to her resentment in the face of the sincere look in his eyes.  
“Understood. We’ll get there,” was the only thing she could think of to say.  
He nodded, smiling a little, and left.

 

—

 

She was on her way home that night, determinedly thinking only of a bottle of wine and her Netflix queue, when a large sedan purred up to the curb.  An older man in his mid-fifties got out of the back seat, and approached her as she came out of the door.  
“Miss Ivins?” the gentleman asked.  
“Yes?” she said, instantly on guard.  
“My name is Reuel Hunter.  You worked with my niece, Tina…?” he said in polished, English-accented tones, and extended his hand.  
Garnett relaxed a little, and shook it.  
“Oh, yes, of course.  How is she doing?” she asked, smiling.   
“She is over the moon, as the children say.  I have never met anyone as house-proud, particularly over a studio apartment.  Anyone would think she’d been handed the keys to Buckingham Palace,” he chuckled lightly.  
“That’s great to hear.  I’m glad,” she said honestly, but confused as to why he’d stopped her.  And, frankly, as to why Tina was living in a dump with a built-in stairmaster when she so evidently came from money.  Her confusion must have been apparent, because Mr. Hunter continued.  
“Tina is… determined, you see.  She wishes to prove to herself and the family that she can become successful on her own merits, without the family’s assistance. I had fully expected that her dreams of an apartment of her own in New York City would come to naught, but one does not wish to discourage independence in a young adult.  And yet you managed to find her someplace safe, to which she is suited admirably.”  
Garnett stifled some thoughts about how Tina would have been kinder if she’d left that apartment for someone without a rich family who really couldn’t have afforded to live in NYC, but left it alone.  She muttered something anodyne about it being her job and let it go.  
“Nevertheless, you have done my family a signal service, Miss Ivins, and rest assured we will remember.”  He smiled.  “I wish you all the luck in the world.”  
She thanked him, and they parted.  She looked back after a block or two to make sure he wasn’t following her.  As encounters went, that had been pretty damned weird, but the way things had been going lately, she wasn’t even sure it cracked her top ten list.  
She shrugged it off, and went home.

 

—-

 

By house twenty-four, their rhythm was well established. Coulson (with or without Fury) and/or Clint (with or without Natasha) would come by to check the place out. If it passed what Garnett was referring to as “The Sniff Test,” they’d bring the rest of the family.    
This house had started very well. Garnett had refused to think that it might be The One, refused to allow the words into her head lest The Jinx swing into operation. She’d learned to keep her hope firmly in check.  She’d watched the children run happily all over the house, had gleefully shown the nanny the accessory suite, and had headed to the master bath to catch up with Clint when it all went horribly wrong.  
“Do you want to take a bath in it?” Clint asked Bella, grinning as he watched her in the enormous bathtub.  Garnett smiled.  She could never help but be charmed when Barton turned paternal.  
“Nope.” Bella said. “Bad things happen here.”   
Barton went very still, then picked his daughter and held her in his arms.  Garnett’s breath caught in her throat.  
“Bad things?” Barton asked lightly.  “You don’t like it here, honey?”  
“There’s going to be a hole in the closet, and a sad man…” said Bella.  
It was something about the way the girl had said it. The light went out of the day, and Garnett’s blood ran cold. She found that she wasn’t even upset when, after Barton had a quiet word with Coulson, they’d rejected this one, too, and had immediately decamped. It had seemed right and correct and in the natural order of things.  
_There’s going to be a hole in the closet, and a sad man._  
Even an hour later, back in the mundane safety of the office, just thinking about it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Was precognition a mutant ability? It didn’t seem impossible, not these days, and Barton and Coulson had taken Bella’s word absolutely seriously. She stared at the printout of the MLS on her desk, and picked it up. She felt like she was giving into irrationality (and hated herself for it), but she suddenly didn’t want to go within half a block of that house.  
Garnett started a little when Carl began talking out of nowhere.  
“Jesus Fuck. I didn’t realize Level 7 paid so well.” He looked up at Garnett. “Hey, Grant Ward’s not related to _those_ Wards, is he?”  
“The recently-reconciled black sheep and prodigal son. Why?”  
“He’s in the market. That makes sense, dude’s got expensive tastes.”  
Garnett rolled her eyes. She’d always felt there was something off about Grant Ward, but had never really been able to articulate what. Garnett glanced back at the file in her hands, and inspiration struck.  
“Here. Take this one.” She handed the papers to Carl, who leafed through them suspiciously. His eyes widened, then narrowed.  
“Yeah, okay, what’s the catch? Ya gonna squeeze my nuts with the finder’s fee?”  
The thought crossed Garnett’s mind briefly, but she still had the shivers.  
“Nah. Take it. It’s all yours.”  
He all but ran away before she could change her mind.  
Garnett just sat at her desk, feeling a million pounds lighter, like she’d just gotten out of a hot shower after a good night’s sleep.

 

—

 

Garnett was having to expand the search.  
They’d gone through so many properties within the city, she was having to look at Long Island and even *gasp* New Jersey.  She was just pulling up some prospects in the Hamptons when Freddie came in.  
“Peter Hunter just died."  
“Who?” asked Carl.  
“Crazy old rich guy.  A hoarder and a shut-in,” summed up Diana. “Great house, though, right in the middle of Greenwich Village, next to the Sanctum Sanctorium.”  
“Gonna be a tough sell with neighbors like that…” said Carl, and most of the office nodded.  New Yorkers might be reasonably proud of the superhero-to-mundane ratio of their city, but that didn’t mean they wanted to share a block with them - the collateral damage could be significant.  Nevertheless, for the right client…  
“Are they bringing it to us to broker?” asked Garnett quickly.  
“They haven’t made any decision yet,” said Freddie.  “We’ll have to wait and see…”  
Nevertheless, Garnett went back to her computer and started pulling up the history of the property.   
Fortune favored the prepared.

 

—-

 

Well, the Hamptons cottage was a bust.  They were headed back to the city when Garnett’s phone rang.  
“Hey, what’s up?” she said, as Coulson and Barton continued to talk amongst themselves.  
“Garnett, you are not going to believe this,” said Freddie.  “Where are you?”  
“We’re on the way back to the city now. Why?” she asked.  
“We got the word on the Hunter place… Get this, it’s on the market as of the top of the hour.  They just want the thing gone, so it’s as-is and contents included but they’re only asking $4 mil and they’re giving us total discretion on the sale as long as you’re the one doing the selling.  You interested?”  
“You’re serious? Oh my God, yes. We’re supposed to see the apartment near the U.N. but I’ll push it back.” She waved to Coulson and Barton to get their attention. “Do you have the keys?  Should we park on the street or can we …”   
“I’ll have the messenger meet you there with the keys.  There’s allegedly a garage, but good luck finding it in the clutter.  Will that work?”

“Absolutely. I’ll make a spot if I have to.”

 

—-

 

Garnett was secretly grateful that Stephen Strange and Jason Wong found an excuse to join them on their tour. Back in the office, as she’d been reading the history (and mythos) surrounding house’s now-deceased owner, she’d guessed the division would have to bring in some specialists in wards and magical traps to examine the property. Now, by sheer luck, she had the two best wizards in the city looking over the place for free.  She wandered over the Hunter property with the four of them, finding that even just getting to look at the place made her feel like a kid in a candy store.  It was full, over-full, with scripts and props, costumes and memorabilia from just about every major science fiction and fantasy property for the last hundred years.  She found herself tallying her own net worth - how hard could $4 million be to come by, really?   
As exciting as it was, the edges of the place started to tinge with sadness.  What had all this stuff been to Peter Hunter, if he was the only one who could enjoy it?  “Star Trek” and “Lord of the Rings” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” - she loved them all, to be sure, but what would they have been to her without the friends she’d watched them with, without the endless discussions of plot and character, the whys, the what-ifs and wherefores?  Something vital seemed missing when these things were trapped, forever unseen, in boxes in this dusty mausoleum.  
Phil Coulson and Clint Barton agreed to buy the property on the spot, because of course they did.  
She made the call back to the office.   
“They’re buying it, aren’t they,” Freddie said instead of “hello.”  
“Hell yes they are.”  Barton caught Garnett’s eye and indicated they were headed for the elevator, so she tossed them the keys. “Can you ask Diana to have the papers ready before we get back?”  
“You bet.  And congratulations, Garnett, I bet you’re relieved this one’s done.”  
“Oh my God, you have no idea… and hey, Freddie, why me?”  
“What?”  
“You said we were given total discretion as long as I was the one doing the selling… why?”  
“Oh!  Yeah, you remember that kid Tina?  The one you helped with the studio?”  
“Yeah?”  
“She’s the executor’s daughter.”  
Garnett laughed until the tears ran from her eyes.

 

—

 

Closing.  
Was there ever such a beautiful word in the English language?  
She’d nearly held her breath until the papers were actually signed, but signed they were, and just like that, the most challenging clients she’d ever had were off her docket.  
A few weeks afterwards, she was at her desk late, wrapping up some final details, when there was a knock at the bullpen door.  A messenger dropped off a big box, addressed to her.  
She looked at it carefully - she hadn’t been expecting anything in the mail - and was no less confused when the return address was Phil Coulson and Clint Barton’s brand new house.  That did make it less likely to be a bomb, so she opened it up, pushing aside the tissue paper.  
And nearly fainted dead away.  
She shut the box.  It couldn’t be.  Not really.  
She opened the box again.  
It was.  It really was.  
Diana had noticed what was going on by this point and came over.  
“What is it?” she asked, confused.  
“It’s Yeoman Janice Rand’s uniform, worn in ‘The Corbomite Maneuver.’  Complete with phaser.” Garnett said breathlessly, absolutely gobsmacked.  
“Oh,” said Diana, wrinkling her nose.  “Nerd stuff.  Hey, there’s a card.  You should have read that first, you know…”  
Garnett opened the letter with shaking hands.  There was a check enclosed - she glanced at it and was again stunned into near-insensibility.  She’d never seen that many zeroes on a check written to her name on her life.  
This time, Diana was impressed.  
She read the letter.

Dear Ms. Ivins,

Please accept these gifts as tokens of our gratitude.  You’ve earned all of this, and more - we certainly put you through the wringer.  This house is turning into more than we could have hoped for even in our wildest dreams.  Please let us share some of our good fortune with you.  Thank you again.

Sincerely,  
Phil Coulson and Clint Barton.

PS - Don’t even try to send any of this back, you’ll just hurt Phil’s feelings if you do.  -CB

Garnett grinned widely and called her fandom bestie to tell her what had just happened.

 


End file.
